ACThePlug had a chance to shoot with Mary J Blige this past winter at a private viewing of her The London Sessions documentary in Chicago.

The documentary, which premiered at TriBeCa Film Festival, chronicles the recording of Mary J. Blige’s 13th studio album The London Sessions featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Blige recording with Sam Smith, Disclosure, and Emeli Sandé.

The most touching moment is when Blige documented meeting Mitchell Winehouse, the father of Amy Winehouse.

Watch the video above to hear how Mary spoke candidly about how Amy Winehouse affected her but more profoundly how she felt personally responsible for not making it to Amy before she passed.

As a journalist, as a Black woman and as an American voter, I am deeply disturbed by this sequence of events for four main reasons. One, the videos that David Daleiden, the founder of the anti-abortion group behind the video, release lack journalistic ethics and do not actually incriminate Planned Parenthood of illegal activity. Two, as much as he wanted to nab Planned Parenthood for their fetal tissue donation program, the reality is that using fetal tissue for medical research is a highly valuable scientific imperative that has been saving lives and making breakthroughs for years. Three, this latest scandal has shown that once again, GOP presidential candidates have no qualms about jumping on a bandwagon filled with bullshit to throw Planned Parenthood under the bus just because they think it will get them ahead in next year’s big popularity contest. Finally, attacks on Planned Parenthood’s services and breast cancer research is ultimately an attack on Black women because we are impacted by breast cancer fatalities and unwanted pregnancies more than women of any other racial group in the United States.

Before I touch on the race factor, I want to break down the political motivations behind Daledien’s decision. What he did was obviously a calculated move. He knew that last week, Congress would be voting on a bill to provide funding for breast cancer research. This funding would have partly gone to the Komen Foundation, a group that provides breast cancer screenings to Planned Parenthood patients. Even though the bill passed and the allegations from Daleiden’s video were proven bogus, Republicans were still able to cut the Komen Foundation from the group of funding recipients amidst their reignited war on Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue donation program. If Republicans get excited enough by more secretly recorded videos featuring unsuspecting Planned Parenthood employees and other antics from anti-abortion extremists, we could face another government shutdown. Conservatives could impede all spending bills until government funding for Planned Parenthood is obliterated.

Almost immediately after the scandal broke, politicians from the Republican party started airing out statements on social media and talk show panels condemning Planned Parenthood, reminding voters that they’ve worked to defund the organization in the past. Governor Rick Perry of Texas came out saying that he’s here to “to protect human life and the health and safety of Texans.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called Planned Parenthood a “morally bankrupt” business” and demanded Congress take steps so that it doesn’t receive “one penny of tax payer money.” Even Carly Fiorina tried to school us on feminism, saying: “This isn’t about ‘choice.’ It’s about profiting on the death of the unborn while telling women it’s about empowerment.”

Source: Laura Segall / Getty

I have to give it to them—Republicans and anti-abortion activists know that people are naive enough to believe anything as long as you repeatedly tell them it’s true—even when you don’t believe it yourself. But this entire charade is infuriating because this conversation doesn’t just have implications for just Planned Parenthood or their rallying cry against abortion and contraceptives as a whole. The race to become president is being run on women’s backs and there seems to be no one in the Republican party who cares. Nobody cares about women’s health or about the complex, varying reasons and life experiences that drive women to seek out birth control options.

I’m not blindly defending Planned Parenthood here. My views on the organization are contextualized by their troubled history with communities of color. As Dorothy Roberts explains in Killing the Black Body, Planned Parenthood has championed birth control as a tool of freedom for White women since 1916. For Black women, however, birth control has historically been a resource sponsored by the government to discourage us from having offspring, sometimes forcing us into sterilization. This fact is maddening and painfully ironic. Innumerable Black women were forced into bearing children within the institution of slavery to produce labor and, in turn, create a profit for America’s White plantation owners just a century earlier. So for Black women, when we’re talking about the origins of “birth control” we’re not talking about women’s choices for our bodies. We’re talking about eugenics, about the government’s practice of controlling the population to accomplish what Roberts eloquently refers to as “social objectives.” Even though Planned Parenthood’s Founder Margaret Sanger was aligned with some of the teachings of W.E.B. DuBois in bettering the Black community, she contributed to ideologies encouraging the erasure of oppressed people. Sanger’s work was grounded in the idea that reproduction in marginalized communities needed to be inhibited because those communities were the source of social evils.

Miraculously however, the tides have virtually flipped. Now, Planned Parenthood’s work is incredibly important to Black women’s reproductive health options. The rate at which we utilize Planned Parenthood’s services is comparable to our population size in America. In 2013, 14 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clients were Black while the US census estimated that African Americans make up 13.2 percent of America’s racial make-up. The reason why we use their services so much is because we’ve always been disadvantaged in getting affordable, high quality healthcare, we’re twice as likely to have an unwanted pregnancy as a White woman and we’re 40 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than White women at every stage of diagnosis.

Source: The Washington Post / Contributor / Getty

For Black women, dealing with unplanned pregnancies in the 21st Century isn’t even just about a lifestyle choice—it’s sometimes about life or death. In an email exchange with Abortion Activist Renee Bracey Sherman, she explained to me that Black women (especially in the Southeastern part of the United States) have high exceptionally maternal mortality rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had found that as of 2011, Black women are three times more likely to die of childbirth-related issues than White women. This is true even though we don’t significantly have higher rates of medical conditions that generally cause maternal mortalities.

Furthermore, for some women, especially the many without health insurance, clinics like Planned Parenthood are our only access to healthcare. So as Republicans have been successfully leading campaigns year after year to close down clinics do far more than just abortions—places that provide us with birth control and medical services—they’ve been increasing our risk of death and leaving us without alternatives to protect ourselves. The best they have been able to come up with are bullshit crisis pregnancy centers filled with unlicensed, Evangelical Christians that are getting paid with our tax dollars to shove biblical verses down women’s throats.

The kicker in all this is that abortion or not, it does not matter what a woman decides for herself. She will be labeled and judged for the rest of her life for her choice, whether that’s life as a single, childless woman or life as a single, economically-disadvantaged mother. We can all be used as puppets for politicians and conspiracy theorists’ disposal. If people like Daleiden, Perry and Cruz would accept that reversing their stance and allocation of funds on anti-abortion efforts could drastically decrease the demand for abortions in the first place, the world would be a much better place for everyone. It’s such a shame that they’re too power hungry, misogynistic, selfish and short-sighted to realize that.

Martin was one of the highest-rated shows of the 1990s during the sitcom’s five-season run. As many of you know, Martin was set and filmed in Detroit, Michigan. What many don’t know is Martin was actually based on a true story around the life of Detroit radio personality John Mason, or more personally known as Mason.

Since the show ended on May 1, 1997 after 132 episodes, many wonder ‘what happened to Martin and Gina’ and ‘what did Tommy really do if he wasn’t a drug dealer.’

Watch the video HERE as Mason tells you the untold stories of the Martin television show as well as what happened to each of the characters in real life and why he and Gina got divorced. He even answered the million dollar question revealing what Tommy did for a living. Furthermore what Tommy does now will SHOCK you.

View gallery]]>http://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/3767408/finally-tommys-job-revealed-the-untold-story-of-the-martin-tv-show-video/feed/17Tommy's job revealedroneatrybulaTommy's job revealedThe Untold Story Of The Martin TV Show [VIDEO]http://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/3767438/the-untold-story-of-the-martin-tv-show-video/
http://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/3767438/the-untold-story-of-the-martin-tv-show-video/#commentsWed, 15 Jul 2015 17:22:12 +0000http://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/?p=3767438]]>Martin was one of the highest-rated shows of the 1990s during the sitcom’s five-season run. As many of you know, Martin was set and filmed in Detroit, Michigan. What many don’t know is Martin was actually based on a true story around the life of Detroit radio personality John Mason, or more personally known as Mason.

Since the show ended on May 1, 1997 after 132 episodes, many wonder ‘what happened to Martin and Gina’ and ‘what did Tommy really do if he wasn’t a drug dealer.’

Watch the video above as Mason tells you the untold stories of the Martin television show as well as what happened to each of the characters in real life and why he and Gina got divorced. He even answered the million dollar question revealing what Tommy did for a living. Furthermore what Tommy does now will SHOCK you.

Spike’s six hour, three-night, epic event, TUT, tells the story of astounding saga of one of history’s most extraordinary rulers, Tutankhamun (King Tut), played by Avan Jogia, and his closest adviser, Vizer Ay, played by Ben Kingsley.

Tut revolves around King Tut’s rise to power and his struggle to lead Egypt to glory, while his closest advisers, friends and lovers scheme for their own nefarious interests.

]]>http://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/3767100/king-tut-miniseries-premieres-on-spike-tv-july-19th-trailer/feed/0roneatrybulaTo Deny That Bill Cosby Is A Rapist Is To Deny What Rape Ishttp://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/3767068/to-deny-that-bill-cosby-is-a-rapist-is-to-deny-what-rape-is/
http://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/3767068/to-deny-that-bill-cosby-is-a-rapist-is-to-deny-what-rape-is/#commentsWed, 08 Jul 2015 12:30:22 +0000http://kissdetroit.hellobeautiful.com/3767068/to-deny-that-bill-cosby-is-a-rapist-is-to-deny-what-rape-is/]]>

Source: Paul Morigi / Getty

I‘m not the least bit surprised by the admission Bill Cosby made during his 2005 lawsuit from Andrea Constand that he had given Quaaludes to the woman (or women) he intended to have sex with. The writing has been on the wall for a long time and almost 40 women with credible testimonies against him have spoken out. It’s important to acknowledge that these women have come from behind the curtain even though most of them have absolutely nothing to gain from this case.

Now that this admission has become an item of public record, there isn’t even a question in my mind as to whether Cosby forced himself on those women for so many years. The only question I have is whether or not our justice system will hold him liable for it. Furthermore, I’d say that those who are still doubtful of whether or not Cosby sexually assaulted the women testifying against him at this point are either confused about what rape and sexual assault are or straight up deny what they are as sweeping, problematic issues in the human experience.

As a result, I condemn Whoopi Goldberg (and anyone who shares her perspective) by foolishly downplaying this latest development because it completely absolves Cosby of what he has said and done while completely undermining what his alleged victims have gone through.

Even though I don’t want to, I sincerely believe that Bill Cosby is a rapist. I have believed that Bill Cosby is a rapist ever since media reports revealed just how many women started independently coming forward with horror stories as early as 2002. The release of the court documents per the AP’s request is just the icing on the cake.

Let’s be clear about the definition of rape and sexual assault that I’m using here to make these claims. As defined by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, sexual assault is a criminal act of dominance through the means of sexual contact or behaviors that are imposed upon someone without their consent. Sexual assault can come in different forms, for example: rape, non-consensual penetration of someone’s body, attempted rape, forcing the victim into sexual acts like oral sex or entering the perpetrator’s body and finally, undesired fondling.

The explicit legal definition of sexual assault changes from state to state, as detailed here in RAINN’s State Law Database. But the essential meaning of what we’re talking about is the same in each form of sexual assault: it’s imposing sexual contact or behaviors onto someone who either doesn’t want to have sex, who isn’t old enough to consent with the other party or who isn’t conscious enough (whether from impaired judgement or simply from being unawake) to agree to it.

This brings us back to the exact statements that Cosby made while speaking with the plaintiff’s lawyer during the 2005 lawsuit. In the now infamous exchange, Constand’s lawyer, Dolores M. Troiani, asked Cosby:

“When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?”

Cosby responded by saying, “Yes.”

Cosby’s lawyer, Patrick O’Connor, then cut him short of answering whether he gave the women the Quaaludes without their knowledge. However, Cosby did openly admit that he obtained seven prescriptions for Quaaludes and gave the women he allegedly assaulted numerous Benadryl tablets. Obviously, this information is incredibly incriminating and gives us a very straightforward picture of what it was that Cosby has been doing all of these years. Now we know for sure that Cosby had intent in targeting these women for sexual activity and we know that he was going to do so by using a substance that would have rendered these women unconscious in the act.

Frankly, Cosby’s attorney butted into the conversation about four seconds too late and in my opinion, it does not matter that Cosby didn’t explicitly say if the women knew they were being drugged. As explained above, sexual contact with someone whose judgement is impaired is automatically considered assault. You cannot consent to something that you were not even conscious of experiencing for yourself. By the same token, these women who did consent to being alone with Cosby or even to sexual acts on other occasions could not and did not ask to be raped. A woman cannot ask for something she never wanted in the first place. I feel like a broken record expressing these things so plainly. Still, these words take a long time getting through to people so I will continue saying them until they do.

Again, I don’t want to believe that Bill Cosby went out and did these things because I grew up loving Cosby’s contributions to society as an entertainer and as a creative. Despite his hateful speech shaming Black people for failing to adhere to respectability politics and for blaming us for our own deaths at the hands of the police, it is undeniable that this man had done a tremendous amount of work through his programming to uplift the perceptions of Black people in America. I have benefited from that. My family, friends and colleagues have benefited from that. We sure hell know that President Barack Obama benefited from that, too.

Still, unlike my colleague, Danielle Young, once said, I feel I have every right to judge Bill Cosby for the mortal yet disgusting things he was doing behind closed doors. Cosby has taught us all why we cannot pick and choose the parts of an artist’s humanity that we want to see. Just as he was capable of garnering support and media attention from millions of people throughout his career and of donating incredible amounts of money to students and others in need from his community, Bill Cosby was capable of using that influence he garnered for evil outside of the public eye.

Perhaps not all of the women who have come forward about this are telling the truth—I’ll give you that much. For all we know, the number of women who were actually sexually assaulted by that man could be as small as four or five. But I certainly wouldn’t put it past him if he did victimize every single one of these people. Goldberg and anyone who shares her view needs to stop blindly defending Cosby as if these things weren’t possible.

This is not a conspiracy. This is not about some resentful models and actresses trying to get their 15 minutes of fame after 40 years out of the spotlight. God showed us a tragic yet eloquent narrative on how hypocrisy can bite us in the ass when we become careless and full of ourselves, and it’s best we all pay attention and acknowledge what happened for what it was.

You know those moments when someone makes an argument that is so incoherent you don’t even know how to respond? That’s basically how I feel right now about Black people defending the Confederate flag. Still, I’m going to do my best explaining why their platform on this issue is utter nonsense and why they need to change their stance on it—real quick.

I do not care if your great, great, great, great grandfather was a cook for the Confederacy in the Civil War. I do not care if White people who wave the flag are kind to you when you walk past them in the street. The Confederate flag is an emblem of racism and hate in any and every context. It is impossible for us to use or celebrate the flag without blatantly romanticizing/misinterpreting the worst moments of our nation’s history, or without disregarding the struggles Black people have endured to fight for our freedom since the slavery era.

I went numb watching the videos ofKaren Cooper and Byron Thomasdefending their support of the Confederate flag in the wake of the horrific massacre at Emanuel AME Church. Cooper, a native of New York and former member of the Nation of Islam, explained that she moved to the South as an adult and became a “flagger” once she befriended local whites that had Confederate ancestors. She explained that she is a supporter of the Tea Party, and felt that Southern Whites and Blacks were more unified and friendly towards one another than in the North.

Thomas, a student at the University of South Carolina, explained that because one of his ancestors worked for the Confederacy, he proudly displays the flag in his apartment despite how uncomfortable it makes his guests. He also made the absurd argument that he is proud of the Confederacy and supports the flag because the Confederacy paid its Black soldiers for fighting in the war. Then he had the audacity to say that Dylann Roof was entitled to use the flag however he wanted to, and that he (Thomas) uses the flag for “other reasons.”

What exactly were these “other reasons” Thomas was referring to? I recognize that White people in the South have a custom of placing Confederate flags at burial sites of their ancestors and at reunions for war veterans among various other, more intimidating uses of the flag. But what could he possibly be using the flag for other than to decorate his home with an item that called for the enslavement of Black people?

Cooper also had me scratching my head. It appears to be lost on her that White Southern people in her neighborhood being polite to her does not mean that they actually believe she’s equal to them. It just means that there is something about her presence that is non-threatening and that they’re willing to tolerate her more than the few other Black people they interact with. More than that, friendly interactions between White and Black people do not undo the institutionalized racism that has long divided us. I’m still recovering from the fact that during her clip in a documentary series about the Confederate flag, Cooper miraculously and proudly said the words: “I believe that slavery is a choice.” I’ll respond to that line by appropriating one of Michael Eric Dyson’s most famous arguments—sometimes a Black person is the best mouthpiece for White supremacy. Again, her arguments on this are utter nonsense; to be enslaved inherently means being forced to do something against one’s will.

I do respect Cooper’s political beliefs that government should have limited political power as championed by the Tea Party. But I don’t think that means she has to align herself with a group that embraces White supremacy in its ideology to pursue the government structure that she wants. There’s a reason why most of Coopers’ connections to other flaggers/Tea Partiers are with people who had ancestors that identified as Confederates during the slavery era. There is a legacy there. How can Cooper affiliate with conservative, racist Whites because she does not want a government that controls her life—but she then supports a school of thought that championed enslaving her own people. The last time I checked, enslaving people equals controlling one’s actions on how one lives, where one lives and whether one lives at all.

I could go on and on about the painful irony of Blacks like Cooper and Thomas supporting the Confederate flag despite its racist past, but I think some hard facts on how and why the flag was conceived will help bring my point home. (Special thanks to my girl Libby Nelson at Vox for her fabulous, thorough storytelling on the Confederate flag’s history.) Regardless of how much supporters of the flag will shy away from this point, the very reason why the Confederacy was founded was to uphold the institution of slavery. This is explicitly stated in documents like Mississippi’s statement of secession:”Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.” The flag has frequently used to promote White supremacist propaganda. Furthermore, the very design of the flag refers to the Confederates’ desire to expand slavery from the United States into Latin America. Following the atrocities committed against Black people before and immediately after the Civil War, during Reconstruction, and the early 20th Century, the Confederate flag became popularized in White Southern culture from the 1950s and on as the government led a more aggressive effort to secure the civil rights of Black people from the Civil Rights era. So as the Confederate flag was being used to scare those rallying for the cause of Black, marginalized people (like integration and voters rights), Whites clung to the flag more fiercely from feeling threatened by Blacks’ gains in society.

I wish Cooper and Thomas were as outspoken about the Black Lives Matter movement as they were about the horribly racist flag they’re so eager to wear and wave in the air. But I suppose that would be asking too much. After all, that would mean getting them to realize that their very existence, their will to live as a free black men and woman in America, completely flies in the face of what the Confederacy stands for (today and back in 1862).

Thomas referenced entitlement to use the flag however one pleases during his appearance on CNN as if it were equal to freedom. But the very issue here is White people’s historic entitlement to erase people of color from the planet. As we speak, the KKK is preparing to protest on behalf of the Confederate flag now that South Carolina lawmakers are deciding whether or not to remove it from Capitol grounds. Would Thomas and Cooper march alongside the KKK in protest if they were given the opportunity to? Of course, freedom of speech would allow them to do this, but that does not mean it is right.

Just by walking the street and posing for pictures with this flag, Cooper and Thomas (as well as the many other Black people out there who share their beliefs) undermine the immense ways in which slaves were abused and killed simply for being Black. We should not and cannot deride our slave ancestors for living through their torment. We have to celebrate them for doing so. Unlike what Cooper suggests during her interview, slavery didn’t just “happen.” It was enforced by White people who consciously and willfully built this institution that is still alive and well around the world to disempower and retard the growth of Black people in American society. We’re still living with the effects of slavery—our imbalanced rates of Black people being stuck in the lower class or stuck without viable employment opportunities, hair politics, beauty politics, sexual politics, the stigmas that influence police brutality. These are issues that are deeply ingrained in our nation’s legacy and we all know that they’re not going away anytime soon. But the least we could all do for ourselves is be up front about what symbols of these racial inequalities represent in our country, and stop glorifying them into something they are not.

Big ups to Bree Newsome for her powerful statement on why she banded with her fellow citizens to take justice in her own hands by taking down the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s Capitol Grounds. Read her beautiful essay here.

A 75 year old, Smokey Robinson was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2015 BET Awards. Tori Kelly, Ne-Yo and Robin Thicke were on hand to deliver an amazing tribute. Check it out above.

With Fresh Prince, Martin and In Living Color episodes still running today, it’s safe to say the 90’s were a golden era for African-American sitcoms. Martin dominated prime time for five seasons, airing from 1992-1997. The episodes never get old!